Graduating students at the University of Michigan were not pleased when their commencement speaker, former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, grabbed the “people’s mic” and used it to attack the prevailing culture of “safe spaces” and “microaggressions” on campus.
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Bloomberg used a portion of his address over the weekend to admonish university boards and administrators who commit the “terrible mistake” of bowing to students who demand to be shielded from ideas they don’t like. The whole point of college, he said, was “to learn how to deal with difficult situations—not to run away from them.”
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The former mayor’s remarks initially received a smattering of applause until he turned to the subject of “microaggressions.” That’s when the boos started to ring out from the crowd.
“A microaggression is exactly that: micro,” Bloomberg said. “And one of the most dangerous places on a college campus is a safe space, because it creates the false impression that we can insulate ourselves from those who hold different views.”
Though Bloomberg clearly disagrees with the emotional coddling of college students, he certainly supports a coddling approach when it come to government regulation of all the things Michael Bloomberg doesn’t like.
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